I have been having the same alert message from Avast recently. I have also had Explorer crash on start-up a few times. Other very odd things have been happening too…
Running scannow might have helped, since my most recent start-up didn’t result in any problems.
Here is my aswMBR result:
[b]aswMBR version 0.9.5.256 Copyright(c) 2011 AVAST Software
Run date: 2011-06-08 19:30:11
19:30:11.546 OS Version: Windows 5.1.2600 Service Pack 3
19:30:11.546 Number of processors: 1 586 0x401
19:30:11.546 ComputerName: CHRISPC UserName: Chris
19:30:12.875 Initialize success
19:30:26.406 Disk 0 (boot) \Device\Harddisk0\DR0 → \Device\Ide\IdeDeviceP0T0L0-3
19:30:26.406 Disk 0 Vendor: HDS722580VLAT20 V32OA69A Size: 76293MB BusType: 3
19:30:26.406 Disk 0 MBR read error 0
19:30:26.406 Disk 0 MBR scan
19:30:26.406 Disk 0 unknown MBR code
19:30:26.406 MBR BIOS signature not found 0
19:30:26.421 Disk 0 scanning sectors +156232125
19:30:26.421 Disk 0 scanning C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers
19:30:35.734 Service scanning
19:30:37.734 Disk 0 trace - called modules:
19:30:37.765 ntoskrnl.exe CLASSPNP.SYS disk.sys atapi.sys span.sys hal.dll >>UNKNOWN [0x87385944]<<
19:30:37.765 1 nt!IofCallDriver → \Device\Harddisk0\DR0[0x873375b0]
19:30:37.765 3 CLASSPNP.SYS[f75d6fd7] → nt!IofCallDriver → \Device\Ide\IdeDeviceP0T0L0-3[0x87306b00]
19:30:37.765 Scan finished successfully[/b]
When I try and run OTS avast wants to start it in the sandbox, and for some reason claims that it’s being opened by C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\dla\tfswshx.dll (I believe this is a system dll, something to do with drive letter access). I did a scan, but no log seemed to have been generated.
I am running XP SP3 on a Dell Dimension. I’ve had this for about five years, and have never encountered any serious problems before (and I’ve never used any antivirus software other than avast). Recently, though, I have had some memory issues - the machine has been giving me a 1-3-2 beep code on start-up. I resolved this by removing one of the memory cards - whether this is related to my current problems I don’t know, but I thought it best to mention it.
Many thanks in advance for any help.
Christopher